golden age of cooking, The

Policy Review, Oct/Nov 1999 by Schnetzer, Amanda Watson

Today, the American tradition of welcoming and adapting ethnic cuisine is alive and well. A recent survey of 2,000 households commissioned by the National Restaurant Association showed that more than SO percent had tried Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Tex-Mex, German, Greek, Cajun/Creole, and Japanese foods. When asked about awareness of a cuisine, the list grew. More than 50 percent of the households surveyed were also aware of French, Soul, Scandinavian, Indian, Caribbean, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and Middle Eastern foods.

Despite American resourcefulness, our cooking has always lurked in the shadow of the world's finest culinary art form. Ever since Thomas Jefferson hired the first French chef for the White House, "Continental" has been synonymous with sophisticated. "American" has stood for plain and provincial. Jefferson was actually an avid gardener who stocked his plots with the latest New World treasures, but he also loved French food. "[M]any of the nation's elite," writes Richard Pillsbury in No Foreign Food, "did not accept these rude American foods and ways of dining at all but continued consuming a largely European diet well into the twentieth century."

To this day, French chefs, techniques, foods, wines, and restaurants carry a mark of distinction that buttered grits prepared by a short-order cook at the local diner will never receive. While the French still make perfect batards of bread, melt-away pate, and splendiferous Camembert cheeses, we make Wonder Bread, bean dip, and Cheese Wiz. Thus, the American culinary reputation for function over form is somewhat well-deserved. As the English captain Frederick Marryat wrote in Diary in America in the early nineteenth century, "God sends meat, and the devil sends cooks, such is and unfortunately must be the case for a long while, in most of the houses of America."

Escoffier recognized the superiority of French cuisine not only in its status as a "science," but in its triumph as an art. "[This art is first and foremost our national art par excellence," he wrote in his memoir. The French have spent centuries refining their cooking techniques and traditions, and they are simply irreproachable. This explains why for many American gourmands the artistry of the techniques has driven them to adore French cuisine and to abhor our native fare. A terrine of pheasant layered with bacon and truffles may evoke images of the earth's rich geological layers, but a lime-flavored gelatin salad with marshmallows and canned fruit cocktail will only provoke one's hauteur.

A farmer's tale

WHILE FOR CENTURIES American cooking may have lacked the artistry of French cuisine, it has honored the toil, faith, and tenacity that the earliest settlers and slaves alike brought to this country's tables. In our capacity to adapt and to endure there was ultimate freedom. As Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin - the beloved French judgeturned-gastronome - was bold enough to declare, "[T]he destiny of nations depends on how they nourish themselves."